NOVEL NEXT Chapter 20 part3
The Taste of Betrayal
Do ESP'ers Long for Fantasy?
Part 3
This is the last post sponsored by Danfiction
In this shitty reality, things that seem to be straight from a fantasy novel are actually nothing but scams and lies. For example; most so called "ESP'ers" are usually nothing more than con-men; those who claim to be able to use magic are just attention-seeking bastards; and those who firmly believe that they are some sort of devil or something are just flat-out crazy. There's an endless amount of examples I could give. Kaburagi-san and I, while both being "self-proclaimed" ESP'ers, do have experience in trying to find the fantastic in real life. Each time we think, "This time it must be real", and each time we are let down.
"How much fun it would be if elves were real," I think to myself. But I don't to carelessly believe in it and end up getting hurt again. No matter how fantasy-like it may seem, I should suspect it to be fake until definitive evidence comes out. This is a trick to survive this fucking reality.
◊
Baba-chan may look an awful lot like an elf, but all of that can be explained with logic and deductive reasoning.
Her speech is odd because she's speaking a relatively unknown language.
Her long ears are the result of having a variation of fukumimi1, or the result of getting plastic surgery, like Kaburagi-san.
Her being able to move her ears like that is just part of how her body works.
Her green eyes are just excessively pigmented.
Her silver hair is probably dyed.
The reason she put a branch in her hair is probably because she's copying some picture book or anime.
She was in the abandoned building because she ran away from her guardian to go on a "secret adventure" and got lost.
There's no part that can't be explained by something other than it being some sort of fantasy thing. Therefore, she's not a fantastical being. Elves don't exist.
◊
"Fufu, if she was an elf, that would be amazing."
"Um, you don't believe that she could be, Kaburagi-san? But things like superpowers and the world's darkness and secret organizations actually exist, right? So it wouldn't be that strange for elves to exist as well!"
It's odd, you know. Even though Kaburagi-san and I should know better by now, so long a there's a single ray of hope there, we still want to cling to it.
Kaburagi-san shook her head, then plucked a hair from Baba-chan's head. She then left the bar to head to the University of Tokyo and ask them to analyze its DNA. If Baba-chan is really an elf (laughs), the results should be different from humans. I we make the request for the analysis today, the results should be available within a week. For now, we'll just have to try not to get our hopes up while we wait.
◊
Baba-chan was wearing simple clothes and shoes of an unfamiliar design, and they had no manufacturer logo on them. And since none of us understood her, it was impossible to ask things like where her house or guardian was. We showed her how to input a telephone number on a smartphone and even pulled up a map on it, but nothing worked. Her parents were probably looking for her by now, but we had no way to get her to them. Somehow, this little girl had become quite the problem.
Even if we eventually decide to reveal Amaterasu to her and extend her an invitation to become a member, what will we do with Baba-chan until then? I tried to take her to the police, since even if she does say something about superpowers, no one will understand her anyway, but she refused to cooperate. She just clung to Shouta-kun's arm the entire time while fervently babbling in her strange language.The policemen were completely baffled, so it was decided that, with his parent's permission, that she would stay at Shouta-kun's place for now. Once we finally got the police report filled out, we managed to contact Shouta-kun's parents and get permission for her to stay
Looking after even one extra person is quite a burden, even if she’s a little girl, but the Takahashi family is rather kind, so the mysterious, braided silver-haired, elf-eared Baba-chan was welcome to stay with them. With the way things naturally worked out, it's become a little bit like those light novels where the main character picks up a little girl who's a freeloader2, so that's an interesting development. Shouta-kun's main character attribute seems to be alive and well. You go, Shouta-kun! This ojisan wishes he had a little bit of that main character power when he was your age…
◊
Then, during the week before the DNA analysis results came out, I searched with all my might to investigate Baba-chan’s identity and background, but, surprisingly, I couldn’t find any clues at all. Kaburagi-san also hired several private detectives to investigate her, but even though Baba-chan is quite conspicuous, there were no sightings of her before she met Shouta-kun. It's a mystery. She's a mysterious little girl. That mystery leads me to have a small hope that she actually is an elf, and that she came here via transfer magic or something. "Stop it, stop it, stop it!" I tell myself. "Your heart's just going to get hurt again! Like that time with Mrs. Malik."3
If I get my hopes up and, in the end, everything is a lie, I'm going to go crazy with rage. I'll probably end up going on a psychokinetic rampage. There's no way I'll be able to pretend I'm fine with it!
◊
My hopes were stirred up not only by the circumstantial evidence, but also by Baba-chan's odd habits. When meals are served at the Takahashi's, Baba-chan only eats fruits and vegetables, though that could just be because she's a vegetarian. She also shows a lot of interest in the television and radio, but that's probably because she's from a developing country where such things aren't widespread. But what's completely unexplainable is Baba-chan's incredibly fast rate of learning.
Baba-chan was learning Japanese rapidly. She started with a children's book that she found in the back of a closet at the Takahashi's, then quickly moved on to learning from J-Pop and Japanese folk songs, and eventually, thanks to Touka-chan, she learned the entire "Heart Sutra". If that was all, she would simply be a genius child, but there's more than that. By moving her right and left eyes separately, Baba-chan is able to read two books at the same time. Also, because her ears move independently, she can listen to the TV and the radio at the same time as well. It's odd, to say the least. It definitely isn't human. Maybe she's not an elf, but the reincarnation of Prince Shoutoku4. Touka-chan was excited by the possibility of Baba-chan being the reincarnation of someone from the great imperial family that introduced Buddhism to Japan.
◊
Now, this is the day when the DNA analysis results come out. All of us gathered at Amanoiwato. There was coffee, tea, and fruit juice on the table, and while we waited for the results, we chatted about this and that.
"Come to think of it, Baba-chan, can you use 'magic', like Shouta-kun?"
In answer to that sudden question, Baba-chan, who was awkwardly holding a glass in each hand and swinging her legs due to her feet not touching the floor, replied
"Magic, in this world, do not have. Power… run dry. Magic, no good."
"I see. This world has no magic power, so magic can't be used, right?"
"Yes, that’s right."
Kaburagi-san had drawn a small, cute picture in the margins of a magazine with a ball-point pen to help illustrate her point. She showed it to Baba-chan, and she nodded happily. Are you kidding me, Baba-chan? So even if you learned some sort of amazing "magic", because this world supposedly doesn't have any magical power, you can't use it? I've heard that line more times than I can count. What an uncreative and shitty lie she's spouting:
"That’s right! There's no magic power here! But wait, are you saying you actually know magic?! Huh?! No way! So if this world did have magical power… but it doesn't."
Let's not think too deeply about this. Everyone goes through a stage like this. I feel sorry for her though, since she already has chuunibyou at such a young age.
Shouta-kun, who's a full-blown chuuni, nodded in agreement to Baba-chan's explanation, but was rather depressed about it. There's an awkward silence, which is then broken by the sound of Kaburagi-san's phone ringing. It’s time to announce the results. All right. This isn't much of a party though, since no one brought any cake.
◊
Kaburagi-san reviewed the text displayed on her smartphone five or six times, then said in a trembling voice.
"The results from the DNA analysis have arrived. Baba-chan's human DNA match rate is 0%."
Everyone was speechless. Ze-zero? Not 100%, not even 10%, but zero? Even chimpanzees have a match rate of 90% or more, but zero? Then what? You're saying Baba-chan is a sea cucumber or something?
◊
This was something completely unexpected. Therefore, even though I wanted to wait until we confirmed her identity to do this, I decided to test out transplanting Nenrikin to Baba-chan.5
The result is… a complete failure. It's like when I tried to transplant it into a stone; there's no response at all. This is impossible. It's impossible that transplanting Nenrikin into a human being would feel like this. So then… It’s hard to believe, but all the clues point to just one thing.
Baba-chan, no, just Baba. Isn't a human at all?!
◊
Like this translation? Support it by buying a coffee!
- Fukumimi = plump ears (large earlobes, like those on a Buddha statue). In Japan, it's believed that those with large earlobes are blessed with good fortune ⇒ ↩
- I'm guessing that it's referring to this (if anyone knows if the author is referring to something more specific, let me know) ⇒ ↩
- Referring to when he went to a psychic's show and they turned out to be fake, so he destroyed the house in a fit of anger ⇒ ↩
- Historical figure who's become a kind of legend ⇒ Prince Shoutoku ↩
- In previous chapters, Sago talked about how the more a lifeform resembles him (human male), the easier it is to transplant Nenrikin to them. So in order to confirm whether or not she's human, he's going to see how difficult it is to transplant Nenrikin to her. ↩